How Do I Reboot My computer to factory settings?

Asked Mar 8, 2009, 12:42 AM
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4 Answers

I want to reboot my computer, I've given up on trying to fix it, I own a laptop
Hp pavilion dv4000. I have two disc that I think might be the ones I need but I am not sure,
One is Application and Driver Recovery DVD I tried it but all it did was reinstall a bunch of programs, I want my computer to be the way I had it when I bought it.
The other disc is called Operating Systems Cd (Microsoft Windows XP Professional)
Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated Thanks

start machine (power on) then hold F12 key
you should get a boot from menu.
select boot from "CD" *might not be exact text
and then proceed with windows installation.

if no screen comes up while holding F12 you will have to go into setup and define your boot sequence to point to CD first.

Because you have a disk labeled "Operating Systems CD", it is unlikely that you have a recovery partition. Nevetheless, it is possible. A lot of manufacturers are including them. If you have one, you will be able to restore it to its factory-fresh state. Nevertheless, remember that there can be a lot of crapware in the factory-fresh state. If you do restore this type of partition, I suggest you go to Add/Remove programs and remove everything you don't want before you install new software.

When you do a Windows installation, you should not "repair" or overwrite Windows. In fact, you should delete the entire hard drive (its partition) and create a new partition. This will let you do a completely virgin install. This is done from the Operating System CD.

Also, you should consider getting into the BIOS and setting that to its defaults.

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However, johndoe99 is quite correct that an entire reinstall may not be necessary.

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